It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

Play the way YOU want to play

It all started when I was bored in Dalaran, my finger hovered over the ESC key, preparing to log off. Something that has become remarkably easy since the RealID stupidity.

Just as I pressed the ESC key and the system menu popped up, I noticed someone

LFM Tempest Keep.

I thought to myself

Why not?

Invites out, summons accepted, in we went.

Buff time

We engage in the usual start of raid ritual of buffing. No one is bothering with fish feasts or flasks – it’s a level 70 raid and it’s filled with 80’s.

A quick glance at my raid UI shows there’s one other Mage in the raid, so I automatically select them and plant a big fat Focus Magic on them.

My Focus Magic is accompanied with my usual pithy macro:

Focus Magic on you, bring on the crits!

Then I stumble.

Rather than the usual automated “thanks for FM” message, I get

Thanks, you want me to respec Arcane?

You play your game, I’ll play mine.

I play Fire, I always have.
I love Fire. It could be as weak as a Warlock and I’d still play Fire.

Krizzly plays Frost, he always has.
He loves Frost. It could be as weak as a Hunter and he’d still play Frost.

Larisa plays Arcane. She loves Fire, but right now loves Arcane more. I think she’d respec Fire with the slightest nudge.

TotalBiscuit plays Arcane because it’s the only spec to play. Playing anything else, particularly Frost proves you’re an idiot. He plays Arcane because as the best Mage spec, you would be gimping your raid by a good 50 dps if you played anything else.

He isn’t sentimental, he doesn’t play a spec because he loves it. He only plays it because it is the best!

Which of course makes me wonder why he isn’t playing the current best raiding spec… Fire.

Ahhh Fire, on a Fire boss.

It was irrelevant anyway, I just popped open my spellbook and cast Frost spells directly from the book (you don’t think I’d waste space with Frost spells on my toolbar do you? Next you will be wondering if I even bothered spending the gold buying Arcane spells from the trainer).

Seriously folks, when it comes to WoW, a game, play it the way you want to play it.

Fire, Frost, Arcane, Wand Spec – whatever floats your boat, do it.

You may be the only person in the game to spec that way, but just remember.

Contrary to popular opinion, 10,999,999 people can be wrong!

If it’s right for you, then it is right.

Arena Fire

I’m lucky I play with a few folk that don’t care and subscribe to my play whatever you want attitude.

Every now and then they ask if I have a particular Frost talent that is an Arena winner. I gently remind them I am Fire and, everything cool, we move on.

I’ve been seeing more and more people in BGs running with Fire. It’s still a bit of a surprise.

Natural for me, unnatural that I am fighting against Fire.

The other night we came up against a dual Fire Mage team. I didn’t realize at 1st, but the Dragons Breaths and Blastwaves gave the game away.

I almost felt sorry for burying them both, almost and not for long.

I am happy they are playing fire because let’s face it, you wouldn’t be playing fire in the Arena unless you loved it.

But yeah. I suppose you’re right. I’m a little bit like TB in this aspect. I’ll go with whatever EJ says, the cockie cutter spec of the day, although without despising or racking down on anyone who sticks to his beloved frost spec or whatever.

I must admit that the development of fire, with the LB dotting, isn’t something that I love. I just suck at it horribly. The multi-target-dotting… I fail to get good results, there’s something about the execution that I don’t get. So I still hope that arcane will be a viable raid spec in Cataclysm. And if not. Well, then I’m back at fire again. Although with a worried wrinkle in my forehead.

Each living bomb brings a tear to my eye, each hotstreak (accompanied by the sound file from powerauras that sounds like someone just got jabbed in the nether regions with a god) makes me harden in all the non-g-rated ways you could imagine.

That’s one thing society can thank WoW for… otherwise I would be on the streets trying to replicate the joys of Fire on innocent bystanders

I would never mislead… (checks blog content).. ohh yeah I am THE misleading mage… but it was actually Larisa that suggested Agility was an optimal stat for Mages.

Yeah, Fire rocks. 4piece T9 and you will be having lots of fun.. throw in a couple of T10 pieces, for hasted fireballs, flamestrikes (Tip, dot the trash, but keep one targeted.. when hot streak procs, shoot it off, purely to get the hasted AoE) etc… music of the experimental Industrial genre.

I think you need a reasonable dose of chaos in your soul.. and you need to accept that sometimes the Hotstreaks don’t fall in your favour. When they do though, you will wonder who that Mage at the top of the charts is. (while you kick over the corpses looking for someone to throw that last Hot Streak Pyro at.)

Remember… Fire demands more +Hit than Arcane, depending on your gear level you might be better sucking it up with Arcane until you have some nice gear.

However, when it comes to PvP (I read Arathi Basin, not Arcane Blasts when I saw your post title), Fire is just silly fun.

Fire is the top DPS spec for progression mages; however, this assumes a full complement of ICC25/heroic gear (and a 25 man raid chock full of all the buffs that make up a balanced breakfast). The average mage is going to get more bang for her buck by going arcane: alts just gearing up, ten man mages (especially those without a hit debuff), or people messing around doing 70 level raids. ;)

Of course the average Mage doesn’t need to produce progression results. You are right of course, but I am still finding myself in the top 3 on the charts, maybe 5th on a bad day, and it should be pointed out that this is a complete surprise.

I nearly missed the gunship battle one run because I was staring at the meter after taking down that big frosty dragon. 10k dps isn’t bad for single target, even if it is just big trash.

I figure I am more than holding up my end and while I might be able to squeeze out more, it’s possible those with 1/2 my dps could do the same, meanwhile I am playing the way I love to play

When GC replied to the ‘mobs immune to schools’ comment with “we don’t really make those anymore” I immediately posted, “Frost mages would like to have a word with you about Scalder in Borean Tundra and Frost Lord Ahune.” Thank goodness Ahune dropped the cloak I wanted on my very first run cause I really don’t know if I could’ve kept going in there doing nothing but casting Flamestrikes and Arcane Explosion.

Frost PvE and Frost PvP for me! Husband can be the Hot Streak nut of the family altho he does keep whatever the flavor of the month is as his offspec just in case.

Nice post. I am a compulsive min/maxer: I don’t identify as any flavor of mage, I’m a “whatever-is-top-spec-or-my-raid-needs” mage. Ais is a diehard fire mage but will and did spec arcane when it was flavor of the month. Whenever I give out mage advice, though, I don’t tell people to respec unless doing more damage is more fun for them than playing a particular flavor. (It’s why my guide has a whole section on how to play frost, even though it’s still pretty weak.) I think it’s more important to play whatever you want to play and well as long as you’re having fun and you have a supportive raid environment.

On the other hand, if that frost mage in your party put up Ice Armor, my eyelid would start twitching. ;)

Ultimately I don’t care where people get their “inspiration”, whether it’s theorycrafted or nutso-fanaticism.

What I do dislike is the

“noobcakes is spec’d non-flavor-of-the-month” rubbish from people that did nothing more than import a talent spec from the web into Talented and have no idea, or desire to find out, how it works, or understand the passion that can go into following a tree.

edit: now, I know you two don’t just grab spec’s of the web without understanding… wish I had more time or I would be chasing your for your beta fire experiences – yes, I would just download them without understanding them ;-)

my mage is frostfire. I have arcane offspec, but frostfire is my favorite. i have the absolute most fun with it. I even tried fire/arcane but for some reason it just doesn’t have the same feel as frostfire to me. of course my dps is also relatively low, especially compared to when I switch to arcane, but I don’t care. 3k in heroics is more then enough and heroics is where I play her most.

that said – she’s not my raider. her contribution will not make or break a kill. so I can afford to play however I want without gimping other people.

I’m not a huge min maxer but when it comes to my raiding character, I at least make an effort. I might keep a few socket bonuses here and there, and I might play a second best spec, becasue I like it more, but in general, I’ll try to maximize my performance on that character as much as I’m able and that means cookie cutting it. I still have fun with it, but the fun comes form the knowledge of being an equal contributor to your raids success, rather then glorified spectator being carried to victory.

I’m a clicker. unfortunately for me, that’s all I can be unless characters are one button wonders, becasue I could never touch type (my fingers constantly lose their spots) I do all right. often i do better then those who push keyboard buttons. but put me next to a keybind using player who otherwise has similar knowledge, spec, situational awareness etc and he or she will do better. its very similar to cookie cutter best specs. they will not shine in the hands of not so good players but they will have highest potential in a hands of a good one.

I guess what I’m saying is that they are shades of fun and there nothing wrong with tooting your own horn, as long as it doesn’t result in other people not having fin becasue they have to compensate for you tooting your horn.

I held onto Frostfire for too long. I wasn’t happy with my low ranking on the charts, I knew I could do more and really I was reluctant to go frostfire due to the taint of frost.

The 1st couple of days were hard.. I hadn’t even thought of the snare component of frostfire… but let’s face it, I had been a fireballing made for 74 levels of my existence, so I soon “warmed” to 2 shotting mobs again (usually followed up with a one-shot hot-streak of a close mob).

But yes, if your shade of fun is red with a blue tinge, then that is the right spec for you.

Gnomer, did you hear that the whole “friends of friends” Real ID thing is going to be optional in cataclysm, too? i read it somewhere… probably wow.com in a blue post or something. anyway, i figured you’d be pleased.

i’m pretty interested to see what your take is on the new 31 point fire trees that are coming. i’m excited about some parts of it for sure (combustion looks VERY exciting, believe it or not…)

Panic not… I believe it is a spell, rather than a talent.. although, there appears to be a FrostFire talent go with.. of course that deep in the Frost tree, you are a Frost Mage with a heart of fire, rather than the other way around.

My baby mage is levelling in fire spec. What’s not to love? I get to set stuff on fire!! Kobolds! Troggs! Gnolls! Woop!

When people ask me why I’m chasing odd achievements or things they consider a grind, I reply ‘because it’s fun’. Your definition of fun and mine maybe different, but you can’t argue that’s the point of the game.

I like the sentiment of the post, but maybe the player in question doesn’t particularly mind what they’re using… maybe they don’t care if they respec because it’s the overall game / teamplay that they’re interested in. It just came off a little like you were saying that they lived in fear of their build being judged / wrong, but you can’t tell that just from the fact that they’re open to change.

[…] you will play what others need you to, and I guess as Gnomeaggedon points out – in his post Play the way you want to and I know us hybrids don’t let the pure dps classes complain too much about choice […]